


State of Mind

by Tabithian



Series: Light the Path [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 07:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4426451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim would be amazed, <i>amazed,</i> at how easy it is for everything to go pear-shaped, how fast it can happen, but. </p><p>Well.</p><p>Gotham.</p>
            </blockquote>





	State of Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Ravenhoodoo asked for Tim coming to the rescue, being a badass about it, and then this happened? *hands*

Tim would be amazed, _amazed,_ at how easy it is for everything to go pear-shaped, how fast it can happen, but. 

Well.

Gotham.

********

“What did you _do_?”

Tim hears Jason muttering something like _stolen artifacts_ and _safekeeping_ and _grubby little hands_ , and _told the little shit not to touch it_ which is when he realizes he's more or less awake, and also - 

“You are such a liar,” Tim says, goes oh, so still because - 

His voice. 

“Oh my god, are we recording this? Please tell me we're recording this!”

Tim squeezes his eyes shut, tries to pretend he's not awake, or no – better still – that he's dreaming this. He'll wake up any moment and be back in his apartment where things are normal. Or the closest he ever gets anymore.

“Christ, and I thought he was tiny before.”

Tim opens his eyes at that, zeroes in on where Jason's leaning against the wall, smirk on his face.

“Oh my God,” Dick says, utterly, utterly delighted. “Tim! You're like.” 

Dick can't seem to put whatever he's thinking into words, hands flailing, slightly disconcerting smile on his face.

“Hey,” Tim says, cheerful, bright. “Did you ever tell Bruce about the - “

Dick being Dick, he catches on to what Tim's doing before he finishes talking, claps a hand over Tim's mouth and _shushes_ him, smile going a little frantic around the edges.

“Ahaha, kids say the darnedest things, huh Bruce?”

There's a noncommittal grunt from Bruce, who is side-eyeing Dick.

“What happened?” Tim asks, but Dick's hand is still over his mouth, so it comes out muffled, garbled and Tim is - 

“Okay, and why am I strapped down?”

Still muffled, still garbled, but the others seem to get the general idea. They aren't _doing_ anything about it, though, so Tim licks Dick's palm to see if that will get a reaction.

Dick grimace, shoots a look at Bruce who raises an eyebrow. Dick rolls his eyes and takes his hand off Tim's mouth, makes a disgusted face and wipes it on Tim's shoulder before undoing the straps.

“Gross, Tim.”

Tim just looks at him.

“Still gross,” Dick says, shrugs.

Tim sits up, slowly, because - 

“What happened?” Tim asks again, looks down at his hands, his body, faint feeling of shock, dread, other bad things he'd rather not give names to.

Dick looks at Jason, who looks at Bruce, who pinches the bridge of his nose.

“It was the damn artifact,” Jason snaps, shoves at Dick. “I fucking told you not to touch it.”

Tim.

Okay, he did touch it, but. 

Only a little, and really, it was just to see if the engraving said what he thought it did, he's a little rusty when it comes to dead languages, sue him. Also, Tim may have picked up an interest in these kinds of things after the search for Bruce. (His father's son, in more way than one, it would seem.)

Besides, they were _stealing it_ , because yes. 

That's what they do, steal things to keep the bag guys from stealing them first, why in the world did Tim ever listen to Jason if this is what he gets?

(Hint: Tim is an idiot.)

“Oh my God, I forgot your face did that,” Dick says, and Tim.

Looks up at Jason, who owes him a favor or two, and if Tim has to call one in for this? 

He will. 

He _so_ will.

“Jason.”

Jason snorts, corner of his mouth twitching up and then he's dragging Dick away, ignoring his protests, and then it's just Tim and Bruce and this thing no one's talking to him about, which is just a little bit irritating, really. 

“It's temporary,” Bruce says, steady, reassuring. “Two weeks at most.”

Tim.

Tim looks down at himself. “Please tell me you turned the cameras off.”

Bruce smiles, rests a hand on Tim's shoulder. 

“He'll never get his hands on the footage,” Bruce says instead, which is almost as good.

Not a guarantee, of course, but. 

Close enough, because Tim is - 

“I'd say biologically, you're around nine at the moment,” Bruce says, horrifically imprecise for him, but. Strange artifacts from long dead civilizations usually don't go for things like that. 

“Fantastic,” Tim says, watches his hand curl into a fist. 

Turns his arm over and traces old scars with his eyes, somehow more sobering on such a small body.

Looks up to see the same realization in Bruce's eyes, the way he looks away and pretends to check something on the computer beside him. 

It's going to be a long couple of weeks.

********

It's a process, re-learning things over the next little while because Tim.

He hasn't been nine years old in a long time, long enough that he's forgotten what it was like being this small. His sense of balance is all off, but that's easier to re-learn with Cass helping for the short time she's in town, apologetic that she has to leave again before he's back to normal.

Dick keeps trying to sneak pictures of Tim, but Jason's good for this, taking the favor he owes Tim seriously enough that he'll grab the cameras off Dick. Or, and this is actually Tim's favorite, though he'll never admit it, he'll just flat-out tackle Dick and turn it into an impromptu sparring match wherever they are at the moment.

It gives Tim the opportunity to slip in an nab the camera himself, and then sit back and take pictures of the two of them having what amounts to a slap fight for the two of them.

Steph bemoans the decision to go traipsing around the world with Dinah on a mission for Barbara that has her missing the chance to harass Tim, but.

Tim is strangely fine with that.

Damian.

Damian is Damian, and Tim ignores him.

For the most part.

“Drake.”

Tim smiles, does a little spin complete with jazz hands at the end of it.

“Nice jacket,” he says, runs his fingers over the yellow stripes on the sleeves of the jacket he's...borrowed. “I had one like this myself.”

********

Here's the thing, really. 

Tim may have the body of a nine year-old at the moment, but he's still Tim.

Still has the training, the experience he's received, earned over the years. He may not hit as hard or as fast, may not be able to perform certain moves in his current body, but he's still _Tim_.

(And when they look at him and see a nine year-old with messy hair and big blue eyes instead of Tim, what they should remember is Tim figured out the identities of Batman and Robin at that same age.)

When things start to go wrong, break-outs at Arkham and riots in Gotham's streets, Bruce.

Bruce locks down the Batcave, like he really thinks that's going to keep Tim out.

The thing is, though.

Tim's still _Tim_.

Bruce gives him a long look before agreeing, and then Tim's coordinating with Barbara from the Batcave, Bruce and the others going out into Gotham to regain control of the city. 

Three hours later Tim's gearing up to go after them with Alfred and Barbara's help, and it's the weirdest case of deja vu as he puts on one of Damian's spare suits.

He makes a face at his reflection, tests his mobility by going through a few moves, and still. 

“Weird,” Tim murmurs, pulls the hood over his his head and turns to Alfred.

“Do bring them home, Master Timothy," Alfred says, the look he gives Tim warm and slightly amused in spite of the situation. Tim smiles, remembers the last - first - time he did this.

"I'll do my best, Alfred.”

(He can't afford to do anything else.)

********

One of the good things about being nine again, if body if not in mind, is that, is that he fits easier into ventilation shafts. He doesn't have the strength or stamina he does at his actual age, but for this, what he has planned, he won't need to.

********

Damian's being held in an old animal shelter that had been forced to shut down due to funding issues, and going from the creative artwork on the walls, one of Joker's crime sprees. (Before Tim's time, he'd remember this.)

It's easy enough to find him once Tim gets inside the building, careful sneaking and delicate applications of strategy and physics. (There's a science to punching someone in the face after all.)

Tim's small, but that's what his fighting style is geared towards, lets him take out the guards keeping watch on Damian.

And, oh. 

Damian's reaction.

“ _Robin_ ,” Damian hisses.

There's the tiniest of tiny eye-twitches going on there.

“Robin,” Tim greets, lets himself smile just the tiniest of tiny bits.

“You look ridiculous.”

Tim looks at him.

“Yes, well,” Tim says. “I'm not the one locked up in dog kennel.”

“ _Tt._ ”

********

They split up, Tim handing Damian one of the packs he'd brought along, gear, equipment, and tells him where Dick and Jason are being held.

“Be careful,” Tim says, can't help saying.

Damian makes a derisive sound, sorting through the pack. 

“I should be the one saying that to you,” he says, looks up with a smirk at the corners of his mouth. “You need the reminder more than I do.”

Tim leans over, tugs Damian's hood over his face and, mimics Damian.

“ _Tt._

********

Tim misses his suit.

Really, really misses his suit, because - 

The Robin suit can stop a bullet, of course it can, Bruce wouldn't let Damian wear it if it couldn't. And really, Tim thinks as he hits the floor, that's all he needs, but.

“Ow,” Tim says. “Ow, ow, ow.”

“You're such a goddamned idiot,” Jason snarls, grabbing Tim and running for cover.

Dick and Bruce are handling the rest of the gunmen while Damian watches their backs from the rafters.

“Fucking seriously, what were you thinking?”

 _Tim was thinking,_ Tim thinks, arm curled around his ribs, _that what Bruce needed to escape was a distraction._

So Tim gave the gunmen watching him a distraction.

Jason lowers Tim to the floor when they're clear, hidden behind shipping containers. 

“Tim?”

“I asked myself,” Tim says, holding still while Jason checks to make sure the suit armor did its job.

That – Tim sucks in a sharp breath when Jason does _something_ and pain flares through his side. 

“I asked myself,” Tim continues, Jason swearing low and vicious. “What would Jason do? And then I did it.”

“Fucking hilarious,” Jason says, flat. “Make sure you tell that to Bruce when he sees this.”

“Sees what?” 

Jason holds up one of his hands, something wet glistening on his gloves.

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.”

Tim.

Tim may have miscalculated. 

Just a bit.

********

Damian is the only one who doesn't hover.

Not that Tim would have expected him to, because Damian, but.

But there's Dick looking at him with this frown between his eyes and there's Jason glaring and, oh, wait, no. 

Bruce isn't hovering, Bruce is being Bruce, so.

“Such a fucking idiot,” Jason mutters, has been muttering a variation of for the last few days. “Goddamn, I can't believe how stupid you are.”

Tim sighs, pretends he can't hear Jason which is harder than it seems with Jason's feet on the end of his bed, but Tim tries.

Dick is.

Dick is folded over the other side of Tim's bed, elbows crowding Tim's uninjured ribs as he looks up at him with that _frown_.

“What?”

“Jason's right,” Dick says, sounds a little surprised to be admitting to anything like that. “You're an idiot.”

Tim looks down at him, bites his lip to keep from saying something dumb, like, oh, _Where do you think I learned it from?_ , because he knows it wouldn't be that much of a truth. 

(Spoiler: Tim's always been an idiot.)

********

It's not.

It's really, really, not fun for Tim when he regains his normal body with a healing gunshot wound and a cluster of broken to fractured ribs, no.

Not with the stitches and all.

Just.

No.

********

“Drake.”

Tim looks up to see Damian standing in the doorway to hi rom at the manor, looking oddly hesitant.

He hasn't seen much of Damian since The Night Tim Got Himself Shot. (as Jason and Dick refer to it, often with _looks_ aimed in Tim's direction.)

“Demon Brat,” Tim greets, grins at the flicker of annoyance on Damian's face.

And then Damian visibly reigns that annoyance, back, tips his chin up.

“You.” Damian stops, eyes narrowing. “You are an imbecile.”

Tim would be shocked, really, if Damian hadn't called him things in that vein since the moment they met. (When he wasn't introducing his fist to Tim's face and whatnot.)

“Nice.”

Damian sighs, like Tim is just such a trial, an ordeal. 

“Imbecile,” he mutters, resigned, and leaves.

“Good talk?” Tim calls after him, because why not. (Also, because Dick and Jason and Tim's life.)

********

Bruce is.

“Um?”

Bruce is staring at Tim.

Which.

Bruce does that, stares at all of them, but usually they're able to interpret his various kinds of stares.

(And that. That shouldn't make as much sense as it does, which is just a little frightening to consider.)

“Is there something on my face?”

Because that would be awkward, with with Tim having had a chat with Commissioner Gordon over the case he's been working on and all. (He's currently crouched on a gargoyle on top of one of Gotham' skyscrapers because it's a Bat thing, and. He should probably stop trying to explain himself to himself.)

“Oh, man, is there?” Tim asks, wipes at his face when Bruce keep staring.

Super awkward.

Bruce sighs, looks away. 

“They're both right,” he says to himself, not quite a mutter because this is Bruce. “You are an idiot.”  
Tim.

He'd be offended, but.

“Well,” Tim says. “I mean.”

Look at the rest of them.

Bruce sighs again, glances at Tim, corner of his mouth pulled up in a rueful smile. “I know.”

(Major, major spoiler: They're _all_ idiots.)


End file.
